by Paul Lines

Created on: September 26, 2008

In 1897 Les Kelly was born in the Arkansas, USA. With this birth came the man who was to create one the most important bibles for the automobile and motorcycle trade, the Kelly Blue Book. The Kelly Blue Book Motorcycles has become the ultimate resource for identifying the value of motorcycles. It provides a range of values, depending on whether you are selling or buying.

For example, if you are selling a motorcycle, the Kelly Blue book will provide you with the estimated price that you can expect to receive for your bike. It looks at these values from two points of view, one being the private party sale and the other the value you can expect to receive from selling to a dealer. It will tell you at the start that the cost of the private party sale, where you are selling direct to the next owner, is higher than a dealer sale because you do not incur the business costs that dealers face.

In both of these cases there are normally a number of different price ranges. These will depend upon the condition and mileage. Normally there will be four price ranges, these being excellent, good, fair and poor. Within each of these sections the Kelly Blue Book will list the criteria that the bike must fulfil in order to be able to achieve the suggested price. For example, for a bike to be considered to be in excellent condition, which only happens in a limited number of cases, the bike needs to look new, have a clean engine that does not show any leakages and be able to pass the normal safety and smog inspections. Amongst the other listed conditions for this grade the bike should also look and perform in a sound mechanical manner and have a full service and ownership history.

The same sort of criteria and range settings are used for the motorcycle if it is being sold through a dealership, except that the pricing will be lower.

Therefore, when selling your motorcycle all you have to do is to assess how well your bike matches the criteria set in order to arrive at an indicative price for it.

The reverse is true for buying a motorcycle. By using the same criteria as outlined above you will be able to tell approximately the price you will need to pay for your chosen machine. It also provides you with a review of the motorcycles technical data and, in a number of cases will have a review of the particular model that gives an opinion as to its benefits and drawbacks.

The services of Kelly Blue Book for Motorcycles have been extended with the introduction of a Internet based service that provides all of the information that is contained within the published book, but with the extra facilities of being able to take into account regional differences in pricing. All this is supplied through easy to use interactive options.

Therefore, everything you want to know about buying or selling a motorcycle, including the vital element of price, can be obtained either for the Kelly Blue Book or online at its website.

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